Australian Flora Art in Finland

Last Tuesday evening the exhibition, Flora, by Australian Printmaker Helen Clarke, was opened by Igumen Archimandrite Sergei from New Valamo Monastery. Father Sergei was very gracious and happily posed for photo opportunities with me. I have never had an exhibition opened by such distinguished company. He was very happy to receive my gift of a handmade ceramic goblet made by Garry Zeck from the Swan Valley. The show has been selling well; as these brightly coloured images of Australian Flora have not been seen before in Finland, I had no idea how they would be received. Happily, people enjoy them enough to buy them. My lovely students from the printmaking workshop have been making purchases too.
The workshop is now completed, having produced some terrific works by the dedicated and talented students. Some regularly worked until midnight. I don’t know how they managed to surface the next morning, but they did, with more layers of ink on their prints!

Thank you to all those who have helped and encouraged me to take my work to Finland.
We are now planning our visits to places of interest around Finland.

Helen and Archimandrite Sergei at the Exhibition OpeningA lovely group of people who participated in the workshop